BCD325P2/BCD996P2: New 996P2

[Jake2021]

Good morning everyone and Merry Christmas!
I had a BCT15X for several years and put up a discone and a VHF antenna on a 30’ pipe.
I got a 996P2 for Christmas! I set the conventional channels I listen to into it and thought I would try a P25 system.
I watched several good videos and thought it was pretty straight forward. I went to RR and got the data for the local P25 systems and entered manually into the new scanner. When I scan the new system I don’t hear anything but it stops on several frequencies and there is good signal strength. Any suggestions? Thank you

 

[trido]

What P-25 system are you trying to hear? We cant tell where your located.

Good morning everyone and Merry Christmas!
I had a BCT15X for several years and put up a discone and a VHF antenna on a 30’ pipe.
I got a 996P2 for Christmas! I set the conventional channels I listen to into it and thought I would try a P25 system.
I watched several good videos and thought it was pretty straight forward. I went to RR and got the data for the local P25 systems and entered manually into the new scanner. When I scan the new system I don’t hear anything but it stops on several frequencies and there is good signal strength. Any suggestions? Thank you

 

[tvengr]

I went to RR and got the data for the local P25 systems and entered manually into the new scanner. When I scan the new system I don’t hear anything but it stops on several frequencies and there is good signal strength. Any suggestions? Thank you

What is your city, county, and state, and which systems and agencies do you want to monitor? You can use FreeSCAN software, which is free, to program your scanner for P25 systems. Here is the link: Downloads - Sixspot Software If you upgrade your scanner to receive DMR or NXDN, you will require ARC-XT or ProScan software (paid programs).

 

[Whiskey3JMC]

Yup, we definitely need info where you're from so we can confirm or negate simulcast distortion, encryption, among other possibilities

 

[Jake2021]

What P-25 system are you trying to hear? We cant tell where your located.

Hi, sorry we live in Nova Scotia. Was trying to listen to the RCMP and also Maritime Public Safety in the Digby area. Is there many other setting I need to check other than setting up and system, site and group and entering the frequencies?

What is your city, county, and state, and which systems and agencies do you want to monitor? You can use FreeSCAN software, which is free, to program your scanner for P25 systems. Here is the link: Downloads - Sixspot Software If you upgrade your scanner to receive DMR or NXDN, you will require ARC-XT or ProScan software (paid programs).

Hi and thank you. Sorry for the delay. We are in Nova Scotia Canada. I use a Mac so free scan etc doesn’t work I don’t think on the platform. Maybe I’m wrong about that.
I just upgraded to DMR but have to wait until next week supposedly before they can get the codes from uniden.
These two systems that I was hoping to listen too are P25.

 

[hiegtx]

Hi, sorry we live in Nova Scotia. Was trying to listen to the RCMP and also Maritime Public Safety in the Digby area. Is there many other setting I need to check other than setting up and system, site and group and entering the frequencies?


Hi and thank you. Sorry for the delay. We are in Nova Scotia Canada. I use a Mac so free scan etc doesn’t work I don’t think on the platform. Maybe I’m wrong about that.
I just upgraded to DMR but have to wait until next week supposedly before they can get the codes from uniden.
These two systems that I was hoping to listen too are P25.

All of the software programs that you could use on your 996P2 (FreeSCAN, ProScan, & ARC-XT) are Windows based orograms, and will not work natively on your Mac.

See this article for one way of using your Mac.
Mac Users of Police Scanner Radios | ScannerMaster.com

Of course, if you can find a low cost, previously owned, desktop or laptop running Windows, that would be a better bet. None of the software packages are resource hogs; they don't require a processor with blazing speed, nor do they need large portions of the memory.

 

[Jake2021]

All of the software programs that you could use on your 996P2 (FreeSCAN, ProScan, & ARC-XT) are Windows based orograms, and will not work natively on your Mac.

See this article for one way of using your Mac.
Mac Users of Police Scanner Radios | ScannerMaster.com

Of course, if you can find a low cost, previously owned, desktop or laptop running Windows, that would be a better bet. None of the software packages are resource hogs; they don't require a processor with blazing speed, nor do they need large portions of the memory.

Thank you. I will look into doing that.
Is there anything that stands out that I might be missing other than the frequencies? There are no talk groups on the RCMP (police) data sheet from RR.

 

[jtwalker]

So you have no talkgroups programmed? If this is true, read this. Are you in ID Search or ID Scan?

 

[Jake2021]

So you have no talkgroups programmed? If this is true, read this. Are you in ID Search or ID Scan?

I will check that out thanks. The police data from RR says no talk groups. The Maritime Public Safety has talk groups and I’m going to try and add those manually this evening.

 

[jtwalker]

Police are probably not listed because no one has reported them yet, or they’re encrypted and no one has went through the trouble. Change system to ID Search for now and see what that does for you.

 

[lands818]

I will check that out thanks. The police data from RR says no talk groups. The Maritime Public Safety has talk groups and I’m going to try and add those manually this evening.

It appears the RCMP system listed for NS is a portable/emergency deployment system so it is not going to be active under normal conditions. There are some TG’s on the Maritime Public Safety system that appear to be shared LE and I’m guessing adding those groups (or switching to search instead of scan) will bring things alive, including RCMP. Quebec appears to be the closest providence with an exclusive RCMP system. Best of luck, keep us posted. Love my 996P2 here in the states—solid radio!

 

[Jake2021]

Police are probably not listed because no one has reported them yet, or they’re encrypted and no one has went through the trouble. Change system to ID Search for now and see what that does for you.

I’m not sure about the ID Search and ID Scan. I’m reading about that now. Hopefully changing that will make a difference. I just added a bunch of TGID codes (DEC) to the Maritime
public safety system. Didn’t seem to make any difference. When scanning it stops on a frequency and there is a pretty strong signal and no voice or noise. I know that the scanner speaker works as non truncated frequencies come in fine.

 

[Jake2021]

It appears the RCMP system listed for NS is a portable/emergency deployment system so it is not going to be active under normal conditions. There are some TG’s on the Maritime Public Safety system that appear to be shared LE and I’m guessing adding those groups (or switching to search instead of scan) will bring things alive, including RCMP. Ontario appears to be the closest providence with an exclusive RCMP system. Best of luck, keep us posted. Love my 996P2 here in the states—solid radio!

Thank you for the information and suggestions. I just switched to ID Search for the RCMP and Maritime Safety. Hopefully that makes a difference.

 

[lands818]

Thank you for the information and suggestions. I just switched to ID Search for the RCMP and Maritime Safety. Hopefully that makes a difference.

I am thinking you’ll see activity on 514, 515, & 517 for RCMP (and other LE) unless they typically run encrypted on 516, 518, & 519. I’m at a disadvantage of their norm with my distance. 😊

 

[ccs247]

Nova Scotia appears to be on a 700 mhz trunked system as listed under this system: Maritime Public Safety Radio Network (MPSRN) Trunking System, Various, Multi-State - Scanner Frequencies (radioreference.com)

 

[Jake2021]

Should I be hearing something when the display shows this?

 

[maus92]

Seems like a multicast system for the most part, so without more system specifics I'd conclude that "simulcast distortion" is not your issue. Who / what is "MPS-T 5-3"? Seems like you entered that by hand - what is the tgid? The Tiverton site in your photos is showing 3 bars RSSI - not super strong - is that the closest site to your monitoring location? There seems to be plenty of non-ENC tgs configured on the system, so ID Search would be useful - with the caveat that a tg user has actually affiliated with the site you are monitoring. Looking at the Tiverton site location, it seems fairly remote. Maybe more Digby sites should be configured if they are receivable at your location.

As I write this using a Mac, get a PC and Freescan (or another software tool) to program your radio - far less tedious than programming by hand.

 

[Jake2021]

Seems like a multicast system for the most part, so without more system specifics I'd conclude that "simulcast distortion" is not your issue. Who / what is "MPS-T 5-3"? Seems like you entered that by hand - what is the tgid? The Tiverton site in your photos is showing 3 bars RSSI - not super strong - is that the closest site to your monitoring location? There seems to be plenty of non-ENC tgs configured on the system, so ID Search would be useful - with the caveat that a tg user has actually affiliated with the site you are monitoring. Looking at the Tiverton site location, it seems fairly remote. Maybe more Digby sites should be configured if they are receivable at your location.

As I write this using a Mac, get a PC and Freescan (or another software tool) to program your radio - far less tedious than programming by hand.

Thank you for the information.
yes I programmed the MPS-T by hand. That stands for Maritime Public Safety and the T is for the Tiverton tower. I used 514, 515 and 517 for the TGID

 

[Jake2021]

Seems like a multicast system for the most part, so without more system specifics I'd conclude that "simulcast distortion" is not your issue. Who / what is "MPS-T 5-3"? Seems like you entered that by hand - what is the tgid? The Tiverton site in your photos is showing 3 bars RSSI - not super strong - is that the closest site to your monitoring location? There seems to be plenty of non-ENC tgs configured on the system, so ID Search would be useful - with the caveat that a tg user has actually affiliated with the site you are monitoring. Looking at the Tiverton site location, it seems fairly remote. Maybe more Digby sites should be configured if they are receivable at your location.

As I write this using a Mac, get a PC and Freescan (or another software tool) to program your radio - far less tedious than programming by hand.

Also 3 bars is a good enough signal to hear something thought isn’t it? I hear stuff on frequencies with only one bar.

 

[maus92]

Thank you for the information.
yes I programmed the MPS-T by hand. That stands for Maritime Public Safety and the T is for the Tiverton tower. I used 514, 515 and 517 for the TGID

You said earlier that you enabled ID Search (rather than ID scan) - is that correct? The reason why this is a good initial step is that it will play any tg in use on the site, except for those that you have explicitly locked out. This will help verify that the site you selected is usable from your location. Over time, you will see who / what users actually affiliate with the site, and what tgs they use. Based on your descriptions so far, I am not confident that you have programmed the radio effectively - what other sites have you entered? There are several sites that seem to cover the Digby area.